English Dub Review: 18if “The Thorn Cross Association”

Hey, what’s that smell? Could it be… Plot?

Overview (Spoilers)

So, Dr. Kats is out for a stroll in the real world, when she runs into a bunch of whackjobs preaching on the street corner. Who are they? Well, they’re not Scientologists, but they’re close. Get this here: Eve (as in Garden of Eden Eve) ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge and, after being permab&d from Eden, she got really sad and took a nap. According to this Thorn Cross Association, the real world is her dream. They believe that the witches were girls who were blessed to take on their true form and create this recursive dream within a dream that is somehow closer to the original dreamer and if we would all just become Sleeping Beauties Eve would wake up happy and take us all to paradise. (*Gasping for air*) Because of that, they see Haruto as an evil interloper, reverting these girls back into their repressed “real world” selves. In the meantime, Lilly comes to Haruto to reveal the true reason he’s been stuck in the dream world. She’s holding him there so he can free the witches, who were keys to open the path to Eve. Why does she want to open the path to Eve, you ask? She wants Haruto to up and murders the mother… of all living humans. Because if Eve wakes up, it won’t be all sunshine and roses. It will be the ANNIHILATION OF EVERYTHING. So… um… you’ve freed ten witches already. Guess who’s waiting to see you?

I hear what you’re saying. You think that this is the nail in the coffin of my theory that Lily is actually Haruto’s Anima. Except it isn’t. She admits to absolutely nothing resembling her identity. She dumps so much information on Haruto, he has much more pressing questions than “who the heck are you and what gives you the power to.Hack//SIGN me?” If anything, the fact that she can force him to stay there only solidifies the theory. Oh, but what is that the girl at the end is holding? A giant flower? Is that possibly an immature Lily? A connection between her and Haruto’s Anima, perhaps? She also holds a microphone, as if she were broadcasting through those speaker boxes. Sure, this could all just be odd designs, but there is likely to be real meaning to it all.

What gets my philosopher brain gleefully rocking back and forth on his seat is the way this show is now playing around with the concept of reality. This extends beyond just the real v. dream world. Consider: This show, and everything in it, is a work of fiction. It is a dream. So, in a way, The Whackos (as they shall forever be known) are right. Their Real World is a dream, and the Dream World is a dream within a dream that receives far more attention from the story and is thus much closer to its creator. Oh, and Lily is right. If they “wake up their creator” it is the endpoint of the series, and the show is over. And done. Does their reality still exist? It’s at this point I am reminded of the quote by Zhuangzi.

“Now I do not know whether it was then I dreamt I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between me and the butterfly there must be a difference. This is an instance of transformation.”

While you are dreaming, it is difficult to tell if you are actually dreaming. The reality of it is tangible, but it fades so quickly when you wake up. Similarly, the waking world is like a fleeting hiccup when the dream begins. How are we to tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined when so much of the information our conscious mind relies upon is interpreted and extrapolated data filled with assumptions by an overclocked ape brain trying to take shortcuts while making sense of the quantum and relativistic perturbations that make up this insane universe? Wow, I’ve got some long sentences in this review. I am so sorry. Look, TL;DR: This episode is surprisingly deep in philosophy, ontology, and subjective morality while appearing to be a shallow plot dump and a clip show.

Our Take

Well, that episode revealed a lot. Like, hey! We’re not gonna tell you a lack of plot for the entire series and then barf it on you in the eleventh hour. Oh, wait. Eleventh episode. And in true Persona 3 fashion, there’s a thirteenth hour to this series. To be honest, I don’t mind it. Now, if you only had the talking heads go at it, explaining everything, this would have been a short episode and kinda boring. Instead, they threw in a clip show! Yes! All the stuff you’ve seen already is coming back to haunt you! For once, I have to say that this clip show was well put together.

First, all of the clips came up organically. As people talked, the clips came out for Haruto and Dr. Kats almost as if they were rebuttals to what they were hearing. The Char Aznable look-alike that leads the Whackos tells Kats that the witches were in their true forms, and were closer to paradise. Kats remembers how incredibly happy, grateful, and relieved they were that they were able to come back. Well, except for the last one. Anyways, that shows you how the clips are. It isn’t like some shows where the characters are sitting around talking about the good old times, or compiling all their information before the end. It is an exploration of their subjective experience after being through this adventure, and how it shapes their perception of the “truth” they are presented with.

Second, each clip segment showed you the experience with all ten witches, hammering home the point, but with a bunch of different feelings behind it. You’d think it would get old, but it’s almost like the chorus of a song. There’s always something different behind each repeat, and its context within the verses of plot dump lends new feelings to the chorus. And dang it, that Witch of First Love got me again.

I have thoroughly proven that I loved the writing of this episode. So, what about the animation and voice acting? It was a clip show, kiddo. Nothing got done here that we haven’t literally seen already. The connecting bits have some animation to it, but not a whole lot. Mostly just gums flapping. This was probably the cheapest episode they made. The voice acting was all kinda one-note, and I’m a bit disappointed by that. The Char Dude’s speech at the beginning also appears in the closing credit music, only in the original Japanese. Whoah, that was impassioned, expressive, and cool. By comparison, the English version was suuuuper flat and boring. Who would turn to listen to him? I’d listen to the Japanese version any day. Even if he believes in the Wind Fish. Comment below if you got that joke.